66 
MOLLUSCA. 
thinness of the animal is proportioned to the narrowness of the 
aperture through which it issues ; its tentacula and proboscis are 
highly protractile; the eyes are placed on the outer side of the 
former, and near the point ; the operculum situated obliquely on 
the hind-part of the foot, is too narrow and short to close the whole 
of the aperture. 
The shells of this genus, being usually ornamented Avith the most 
beautiful colours, are very common in cabinets. The seas of Europe 
produce very few *. 
They are distinguished by the flatness or slight projection of the 
spire ; by the whorls being tuberculated or not ; by its being more 
salient and even pointed, and furnished, or not, with turbercles. 
There are some in which the spire is sufficiently salient to give 
them a cylindrical appearance, in Avhich case it may be either smooth 
or tuberculated f. 
The appellation of crowned spire is applied to that AAfliich is studded 
with tubercles, 
Cypr.ea, Lin. 
The spire projecting but little, and the aperture narroAV and extending 
from one extremity to the other ; but the shell, Avhich is protuberant 
in the middle, and almost equally narroAved at both ends, forms an 
oval, and the aperture in the adult animal is transversely Avrinkled on 
each side. The mantle is sufficiently ample to fold over and envelope 
the shell, Avhich at a certain age it coA'ers Avith a layer of another 
colour, so that this difference, added to the form acquired by the 
aperture, may easily cause the adult to be taken for another species. 
The animal has moderate tentacula, AA'ith the eyes at their external 
base, and a thin foot Avithoiit an operculum. 
The colours of these shells, also, are extremely beautiful ; they are 
extremely common in cabinets, though Avith very fcAV exceptions they 
all inhabit the seas of tropical countries J. In the 
OvuLA, Brng. 
The shell is oval, and the aperture narroAV and long, as in Cypra>a, 
but Avithout plicse on the side next to the columella ; the spire is con- 
cealed, and the tAvo ends of the aperture equally emarginated, or 
equally prolonged in a canal. Linnaeus confounded them Avith the 
Bullae, from Avhich Brugieres has very properly separated them. The 
* For the species of this beautiful genus see the article and the plates of Brugieres 
in the Encycl. Method., where they are extremely well deseribed and figured, 
and the enumeration still more complete than in the Ann. du Mus. XV, by M. de 
Lamarck. 
•f Species Avith a crowned spire : Con. cedonuUi, L., a shell much sought for, and 
of which there are many varieties, Encycl. Method., pi. 316, f. 1 ; Con, marmoreus, 
L., Enc., pi. 317, f. 5; — Con. arenafus, Brug., Encycl., pi. 320, f. 6, &c. 
Species with a simple spire : Con. Utteraius, L., Encycl., pi. 326, f. 1 ; — Con. 
iessellatus, Brug. Enc.. pi. 326, f. 7 ; — Con. virgo, Brug. Enc. pi. 325, f. 5, &c. 
J For the species see the genus Cypraa, Gmel., and the figures collected by Bru- 
gieres for the Encyclop., the Gen. of shellsby SoAverby, No. XVII, and particularly 
a Monograph by M. Gray, published in the Zool. Journal, Nos. 2, 3, and 4. 
